


Natural Endearment

by Alyas_Alias



Series: Ukitake Juushiro x Onmitsukido!Reader [5]
Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Reader-Insert, terms of endearment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-03 03:22:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19455301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alyas_Alias/pseuds/Alyas_Alias
Summary: Rated 'M' because of a single scene in chapter 2. Not explicit and not really smut.Inspired by musings on terms of endearment. This fic was birthed from my musings over the difference between two specific terms of endearment.





	1. Sweetie

**Author's Note:**

> This installment was sparked by my musings over terms of endearment and their meanings. It started when I noticed how a friend of mine referred to his wife almost exclusively as “honey”, but when they were dating he used the term “sweetie”. 
> 
> What you need to know:  
> -[Name] met Juushiro when he was three and brought to Mimihagi’s shrine by his parents to try to cure him of consumption. Years later the family went back and met [Name] again, finding out that she had spirit pressure. They took her in to streamline her application to the Shin’o Academy and she’s lived with the Ukitake family ever since.  
> -She was up to four years behind Juushiro in the academy despite being about the same age as him.  
> -this installment is made up of 2 chapters that take place at different moments in their lives. I’ve left it vague when exactly this installment takes place in the timeline of [Name] and Juushiro’s relationship. It’s probably set in the earlier years of their marriage because Shunsui is unaware of what [Name]’s job really is. With lifespans as long as they all have, ‘early’ could be a ballpark of a few decades.

“For two, please!” Shunsui calls out as he and his best friend enter a tea shop.

“Right away! Over here, if you please!” A familiar voice calls out and Shunsui’s eyes widen as he takes in the sight of the waitress.

“Thank you!” Juushiro pushes at his friend, ushering him to the private table the waitress directed them to.

It’s rare that both Shunsui and Juushiro have the afternoon off at the same time. Shunsui decided to invite his friend out for drinks and a meal because he heard that [Name], Juushiro’s wife, has been working a lot and hasn’t been home in a long time.

He’s wondered it for a while, what sort of work [Name] really does. He thought for sure she had joined the _Gotei_ , but long-term missions in the _Gotei_ rarely take more than a month or two, and that’s usually just a deployment to the World of the Living and usually only happens to an individual once every few decades if at all. Aside from that, he has drinking-buddies in a lot of different squads and nobody’s heard of [Name] before.

He signed as a witness to their marriage a while ago, but it seemed a little off in his mind. Juushiro’s a down-to-earth sort of guy, but to not even have an official ceremony seemed a little strange to him. Juushiro’s siblings weren’t present and [Name] disappeared shortly after the signing of the documents. He never figured out how to brooch the subject with Juushiro but it seems like he might have a chance today.

“Why is [Name]- _chan_ —” He’s cut off when Juushiro steps on his foot under the table.

“Say nothing. She’s working.” Juushiro hisses at Shunsui. The two of them are seated at their private table, Juushiro’s back to the rest of the establishment and Shunsui across from him, his back against a wall. Shunsui has a clear view of the shop, the staff, and the other patrons.

“As a waitress?”

Juushiro doesn’t react. Shunsui decides not to grill his friend, expecting Juushiro will share when he is ready.

“Order for table three!”

“Thanks, sweetie!” Shunsui’s jaw drops as he watches [Name] accept a kiss in the cheek from a man leaning out of the window to the kitchen as he hands her a tray loaded with food. He’s still gaping when [Name] goes, flouncing off to serve the people at ‘table three’.

“Ukitake…I hate to tell you, but your wife—”

“I know.”

“If you guys were into _that_ I would have—”

“No.” Juushiro plays with a napkin as he tries to figure out how to put his thoughts into words. “I-It’s not like that. S-She’s not…unfaithful…i-i-it’s part of her job.”

“You’re not talking about waitressing…are you?”

Juushiro gives a barely noticeable shake of his head as another waitress comes to their table and fills two glasses with water, setting it in front of them. Once she is out of earshot Shunsui assumes his friend will explain.

“T-That’s not really [Name].”

“What?”

“S-She’s playing a role…you know… _undercover_.” Juushiro whispers the last word and brings the glass of water to his lips to hide the movements of his mouth.

Shunsui ponders for a moment before it begins to make sense. He knew that Juushiro and [Name] had a secret marriage. As far as he knows, only himself and Yamamoto Genryusai are aware of the union. Juushiro’s family haven’t acted any different either. It’s like they don’t know that they have a sister-in-law. Now that he thinks about it, the Women’s Association still ranked Juushiro as the most desirable bachelor in the Gotei recently. Shunsui knows that one of Juushiro’s third-seats is involved with the Women’s Association. If his marriage to [Name] were public knowledge, surely the Women’s Association would have gotten word of it.

Juushiro still gets the occasional marriage proposal from people, whether it’s an anonymous love confession asking for an audience or some noble family wanting to unite their houses. To his knowledge. Juushiro has always courteously declined those offers, remaining faithful to his absent wife. He feels a stab of anger at the injustice: Juushiro has been faithful to her and here she is playing wifey to some random guy at a tea shop.

“Should we leave?”

“No. This is fine.”

“How are you okay with this? That’s your wife! If my wife did something like that in front of me I’d—I’d drink myself into a stupor or something! I’d be outraged!”

“You drink yourself silly regardless if you had a wife or not. She’s not my wife right now. Kyouraku, it’s fine. I knew this would happen long before we got married.”

[Name] comes by, placing a pot of tea and two cups in the middle of the table _._ They haven’t even ordered yet. She pours two cups of the tea for them.

“Thank you.” Juushiro smiles at [Name]. Shunsui realizes it’s the same smile he gives to the maids and other people that have served him tea in the past. He mulls over this fact as he takes a sip of his tea, wondering why Juushiro’s suddenly treating [Name] like a stranger.

“Sure thing, _honey._ ” Shunsui doesn’t catch the split-second moment between the two before [Name] falls back into her façade of a bouncy, overly affectionate waitress. “Anything else I can add to the order?”

Shunsui and Juushiro give her their orders and she walks off with a wink as a slightly tipsy man at another table hollers to get her attention. Shunsui’s eyes narrow at the way the man gropes [Name]’s backside as she takes the empty _sake_ bottle from his table. The man is a total sleaze. He might be the pot calling the kettle black, but he never touched [Name]’s butt while thinking impure thoughts. He did it to get a rise out of [Name]; this sleaze-ball is doing it while undressing her with his eyes. If it goes any further, they’re likely to have a situation on their hands and he doesn’t think his friend will be able to stay calm if some random drunkard were to rape his “not-wife” on a table about two meters away.

“How is _that_ okay? You’ve got to feel something. Anger, rage, jealousy—anything!”

“I never said I wasn’t.” Juushiro sips at his tea, noting that it’s _gokyuro_ , a high-end tea and one of his favorites.

“How can you watch this? The way they’re all looking at her is—I’m not married to her and I’m kind of pissed off! She’s calling someone else ‘sweetie’!” Shunsui hisses and grips his cup of tea tightly.

“Because,” Juushiro smiles to himself as he remembers the first time he caught [Name] undercover. “She calls me ‘honey’.”

**A few days later…**

“She’s in here.”

Juushiro thanks the man in _onmitsu_ garb that showed him the way to this room. Bidding his farewell, the man disappears and leaves Juushiro to slide open the door on his own. He grips the side of the door, steeling himself for what he might find behind the door. [Name] sent for someone to get him, so at least she was conscious when she was brought in; but the fact that he’s here to bring her home is worrisome. It means she’s not in a state to get home on her own and surprise him with her homecoming this time.

She lies, unmoving, on a _futon_ in the middle of the room. He quickly makes his way over, willing himself not to panic. His fears are quelled when he sees the steady rise and fall of the blankets. She’s breathing.

There’s a bandage wrapped around her head; a stark contrast to her hair. A head-injury is worrisome; but she remembered enough to ask for him when she was brought in, that’s promising. He gently reaches over to run the back of his fingers over her cheek, reassuring himself that she is alive in front of him.

Her eyes flutter open and take a moment to focus on him, no doubt a result of the head-injury. She smiles and Juushiro can tell that recognition has set in.

“Hi, honey.”

“Welcome home, darling.” Juushiro moves a stray strand of hair from her eyes, smiling down at her.

Her missions are dangerous and sometimes she comes back injured. He’s just glad she comes back at all. He brought their old _haori_ just in case, but her use of that particular term of endearment proves that it won’t be necessary this time. Even so, he unfurls the patchy article of clothing and drapes it over her.

“So…care to tell me how you got a head-injury? Last I checked, you were working as some coveted waitress at a tea shop. It didn’t seem like anyone around wanted to hurt you.” Juushiro mindlessly strokes a few strands of her hair away from her face as he speaks. Really, he’s just making conversation. Sure, he’s curious, but he knows that [Name] doesn’t always have the liberty of talking about work.

“Some random guy came in, yelling about how he was on his way to become the next Kenpachi.” [Name] closes her eyes, enjoying the feeling of Juushiro’s fingers in her hair. “He pissed off a bunch of people and a brawl started. They were scaring the other patrons so I went to tell them off.”

“The Kenpachi-candidate decided that taking what he wanted applied to more than just the title. He wanted a woman on his arm and he wanted that woman to be me.”

Juushiro’s hand stills as he fights the influx of rage at the idea of other people coveting his wife. He understands how others could fall for her; he also understands how ‘Kenpachi’-type people tend to think. The thought of some blood-thirsty killer coveting his wife doesn’t sit right with him.

“That declaration didn’t sit well with some of the other patrons. Least of all with my ‘husband’. Things broke and I’m pretty sure it was a splintered table-leg or piece of siding that got me in the head. The last thing I remember was my ‘husband’ coming out of the kitchens with a large frying pan.” [Name] snorts a laugh. “At least some good came of this.”

“What’s that?” Juushiro smiles at his wife, wondering if the head-injury scrambled her judgement of ‘good’.

“It’ll take time before people forget my face. I’ve been pulled from active duty for the time being. I get to come home for a bit, Juu- _chan_.”

“What about the original mission? Weren’t you guys on the trail of some threat to the Soul Society?” Juushiro can’t help being happy about the news of her homecoming, but he doesn’t want to get his hopes up too quickly. He’s been disappointed before when [Name] had to be called back into active duty in the middle of a vacation.

“Not all leads pan out. We’ve been stationed there for a while and we didn’t get any new information. It’ll take some time to rule out misdirection or bad intel and that’s out of my hands due to the Kenpachi-wannabe. I’m coming home for a while,” [Name] smiles coyly at her husband. “That is, if my dear husband is alright with it.”

Juushiro matches her smile and leans over to meet her lips. He conveys his feelings to her in that kiss—filling it with how much he has missed her, how badly he wants her home, and a promise of everything he’d do to her were they not at the Second Division barracks.

“Shunsui got pretty mad, seeing you at the shop that day.”

“I know. He’s been coming in often, glaring daggers at any guy that tries to touch me.” Juushiro is shocked at this news. He hadn’t heard anything of the sort from his friend. In hindsight, he should have expected as much from Shunsui.


	2. Honey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explanation time. This chapter will explain Juushiro's response to Shunsui at the tea shop. What did he mean when he said, "Because...she calls me honey"? 
> 
> Also, question for my readers somewhere in the endnotes. Much like the debate on chaptering installments, please let me know your thoughts in a comment.

“Welcome!”

“Aa.” Juushiro browses the display cases of cakes and various sweets. It’s Hina’s birthday today and due to their busy schedules everyone forgot to arrange for a cake, so here he is hoping that they can whip something up last-minute even if he has to pay a premium. He wishes [Name] were here. She’d be on top of things like this. Unfortunately, she’s away on another long-term mission.

“Ah! Sweetie, can you man the counter? I’ve got to finish the special order.”

“Sure thing, dearest!”

Juushiro’s jaw drops as he recognizes the first voice as that of his wife. She’s changed her hair and a few other things, but it’s definitely her under the apron and striped uniform of this shop. He collects himself soon after, realizing that she must be undercover and that he shouldn’t mess that up. That knowledge doesn’t lessen the stabs of jealousy he feels as the man calls **his** wife ‘dearest’ and fondles her hands as she hands him the key to the till.

“Are you looking for something in particular, sir?” The man notices Juushiro in the shop and decides to help him out.

“Aa. I was wondering if you could do a rush-order on a birthday cake. In the haste to plan a party it seems everyone forgot to order a cake.”

“How soon do you need it?”

“Within three hours or so.”

“Hmm…we could probably write ‘Happy Birthday’ on one of the larger sheet cakes…but no matter what we did it’d still look pretty generic, even if we added some decoration. A personalized one wouldn’t be possible at this rate.”

“Sweetie, I’ll take over from here. You need to keep an eye on the sugar arrangements, right? The syrup’s about to hit three-hundred and you’ll have to move quickly.”

“Thanks, dear.” The man heads to be back, but not before pressing a kiss to [Name]’s cheek. Juushiro notes that the man was aiming for her lips but she turned at the last second. Without missing a beat, the man disappears into the kitchen.

“He tries, but I’ve never let him get one on my lips.” [Name]’s voice, the one he remembers, speaks to him without the high falsetto she put on when she was calling the other man ‘sweetie’.

“Huh?”

[Name] holds out a large box. Inside the box is a large cake…shaped like a Hina-doll. The piped border is made up of three colors of icing piped in a pattern, pink, green, and white. The words ‘Happy Birthday, Hina’ are written in a familiar, elegant, script.

“Your order is ready, sir.” [Name] smiles at him, adopting the manner of a shop-girl once more.

She closes up the box for the cake and sets it on a cloth, carefully tying a beautiful ribbon around the box to hold it closed. Instead of ringing him up [Name] reaches behind the counter and pulls out two boxes of sweets. Juushiro notes that the sweets in these boxes aren’t in any of the display cases. _Ohagi_ and _botchan_ _dango_. His and Hina’s favorites. After [Name] puts the boxes together she ties the cloth wrap around the packages.

“T-Thank you. H-How much?”

“It’s already been paid for, sir.” [Name] smiles and leans in close. “Tell Hina ‘Happy Birthday’ for me, okay? I’ll try to get her a better present when the mission is over.”

Juushiro nods. [Name] allows her hands to linger on his as she hands him the package.

“See you soon, honey.” She whispers breathlessly as she draws back.

Picking up his order, Juushiro leaves the shop, dumbfounded.

A few weeks later he goes home to Ugendo and finds his wife is home.

“[Name]?”

“Hi, honey! I’m home.” [Name] chirps as she flounces over to him. She brings her arms up to wrap around his neck and kisses him full on the lips. He doesn’t kiss back.

“Juu-chan? What’s wrong?”

“Aa. [Name]…c-can we talk?”

The two wind up in the bath together. Juushiro scrubbed down and entered the pool first and [Name] is currently scrubbing herself and rinsing the suds out of her hair. It’s when they sit alone in the bath that they can talk to each other with less fear that the other Ukitake siblings will eavesdrop.

“Uhm…[Name]…a-at the shop y-you were…” Juushiro’s query is drowned out as [Name] douses her hair with a pail of water.

“You can say it, Juu-chan. Yes, I had to pretend to be married to the man I was working with.”

“Uhm…w-why?”

“Married couples tend to attract less suspicion than single newcomers,” [Name] twists her wet hair into a loose up-do to keep it out of the bath as she steps into the water. “We were investigating a potential cultist group in the area and the orders were to infiltrate without causing suspicion while gaining the trust of the surrounding community,”

[Name] glides over to Juushiro, sitting next to him in the bath, their knees brushing against each other. “It worked. Eventually, we got an invitation to join the movement. Once we learned of their organization, their plans to tip the balance of souls between worlds, and whether or not they had a larger network, we called it in and shut it down.”

“Pretend…huh?” Juushiro muses.

[Name] freezes as she realizes what her husband is hung up on. She was playing with her hands in the water, squirting little jets of water from squeezing her fist while half submerged.

“Ah! Wha—” Juushiro sputters as he gets squirted in the face. [Name] capitalizes on his distraction and straddles him in the water, ensuring that when he wipes the water from his eyes she will be all that he sees.

“Yes, pretend. Nothing happened between us. Silly goose, did you forget why we got married?” Juushiro stares, dumbfounded at his wife. [Name] was always beautiful, regardless of what guise she adopted for missions, but she’s even more so right now. The droplets of water that cling to her lashes and the ends of her hair combined with the steam from the bath casts an ethereal beauty on her.

“We both knew that I’d be asked to pretend to be married to people, inside the _Onmitsukido_ or not. That’s why we got married in a hurry, isn’t it? Ours is the only one where I’m not pretending. When I close my eyes at night, especially on missions, you’re all I see.” She cups the side of his face with a hand, smiling at him. “Nothing has happened on these missions. I’m yours, through and through. You’re the only man I go to bed with. You’re the only one I bathe with,” She takes his hands and sets them on her thighs, shivering as he slides his hands up under the water. “You’re the only one that gets to touch me like this without getting their hands thoroughly burned by _kido_ afterwards.”

“I-I see…I-It’s just…a-are you always so…so **convincing**?” [Name] plays with a strand of Juushiro’s damp hair, twisting it around her fingers gently as she thinks on how to respond to his question. She’s pleased that his hands haven’t left her body. They’re around her waist now, still hidden by the water.

“I have to be.” It’s not the answer Juushiro was hoping for and she can tell by the way his hands have stopped moving. They’re still resting on her body, but they’ve stopped their tantalizing movements beneath the water. [Name] sighs and decides to reveal an embarrassing tidbit…something she had hoped would go unspoken and be her own little reassurance.

“I called him ‘sweetie’, right?”

“Aa.” Juushiro’s face falls, recalling the way his wife was seemingly so in-love with the man at the bakery.

“And I call you ‘honey’, don’t I?”

“Y-Yeah…” Juushiro’s brow furrows inquisitively, wondering what [Name] is getting at.

“Want to know why that is?” She takes Juushiro’s stunned silence and blank expression as a cue to continue. “I call all of them ‘sweetie’, but you’re the only one I call ‘honey’. I-It’s because,” [Name] falters. She didn’t think it’d be this embarrassing. Now that she has to say it out loud it sounds petty and more than a little ridiculous. “S-Sweets take effort to make. I-In my case they tend to be made when I’m stressed, r-right?”

“Aa.” Juushiro hopes she will continue.

“S-S-So that’s why I call them ‘sweetie’…i-i-it’s stupid…it’s just my own stupid way of drawing the line somewhere. To me it means t-that…w-well…it takes effort to love them…i-it’s work.”

[Name]’s face is bright red at this point as she clings to Juushiro’s shoulders, still straddling his lap in the water. “H-Honey is a naturally occurring sweet.” [Name] buries her face in Juushiro’s shoulder, trying to calm her blush. “Loving my husband is natural.”

He lets out a barely-audible snort. She can’t see him smiling, but she can tell he’s in better spirits by the way his hands and the rest of his body move under her in the bath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, the order of this installment was a little different. The entirety of chapter 2 was originally written as a flashback in italics and placed between Juushiro's response to Shunsui and him finding her injured a few days later. When I was ready to post this installment I realized it was long enough to chapter and I decided to re-jig the order. Hopefully, it makes sense and still works as a chaptered fic rather than having it all at once. 
> 
> Actually, this installment was supposed to be short and sweet. I was planning on writing fluff and it evolved into a whole deeper-meaning of terms of endearment thing.
> 
> I’m pretty sure [Name] has used ‘sweetie’ or whatnot in other installments so don’t take the whole “she only calls Juushiro ‘honey’” too seriously. Maybe it’s a good thing I screwed with time in the “Leapt Through Time” installment. It’s a cop-out, but I guess I could technically say, “from now on, assume any continuity errors mean the installment takes place in another timeline”. I’m joking here, but it does open up a few possibilities for me. For example, we’ve already flashed forwards in time to where Juushiro and [Name] are married and everyone knows etc. “Leapt Through Time”. After chatting with a few friends about this series, I’ve started to toy with how [Name] would deal with it if the events of canon, specifically chapter 616, were to come to pass. There are many scenes and installments I’m in the process of crafting that take place in a future where 616 didn’t happen the way it did, but it would be fun to explore different futures/events.
> 
> Question for my readers: do you like the idea of me posting different timeline stuff in this series? Most installments are already in a floating-timeline of sorts, and this thing definitely isn’t being posted in chronological order (I had everything of “Natural Endearment” but the notes written long before “Leapt Through Time” was ever a thing…but I’m posting “Natural Endearment” after because this one was originally meant to be fluff and I felt like it was time to post something serious). I’ve been trying to keep most of the installments in the same universe/timeline. If I were to write alternate timeline stuff—e.g. character deaths, canonical and not—would you guys want to read them? I’d be doing the same thing—preluding it with a “What you need to know” section like I always do. I’m toying with the idea of including it under the same “Juushiro x OnmitsuReader” series like I am here if it’s essentially the same reader.
> 
> To be clear: I’d only post those alternate timeline installments as part of this series if it were the same [Name] character. I have other XReader stuff in the works, some of which are JuushiroXReader things yet again, but it’s a completely different reader (e.g., she’s not Onmitsu, she was not taken in by the Ukitake clan, she meets Juushiro when he’s a captain and not as children etc.)


End file.
